


running out of words (that spiral on a page)

by ravyn_sinclair



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: A.Ham Needs a Friend, Angst, Foster Care, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, See Inside for Details, Work Up For Adoption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 08:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10987626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravyn_sinclair/pseuds/ravyn_sinclair
Summary: Alexander Hamilton was 15, lost inside the unforgiving system of Foster Care with "parents" that either ignored him or cursed him, and alone with only his words and hopes in a tired, old journal.It would be enough.  It had to be.





	running out of words (that spiral on a page)

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in my email of all places, unfinished, and lacking the notes I know I wrote down once upon a time. I also know that there was supposed to be nearly eight pages more of this but that wasn't saved in the draft for whatever reason. I'll leave this as a teaser, I guess, and if anyone wants more they can hit me up for information. I do have just a liiiiittle bit more of it saved, but it wasn't quite finished and would offset the flow of this part if I posted the unfinished bit.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Hamilton the musical, nor do I own Alexander Hamilton the person.

Alexander let out a sigh as he let the door click shut behind him, slumping with exhaustion against the thin wood. 'Looks like the didn't notice me,' he thought, and with a fortifying breath he stood straight again and dumped his threadbare backpack on the floor next to the table he called his desk. He fumbled with the lamp for a moment, fingers twitching on the switch - when it didn't turn on he huffed and reached around the legs of the table to carefully press on the reset button for the outlet. The light flickered on, softly illuminating the small room, and Alexander flopped into the stiff chair with a groan.

Not for the first time (and certainly not the last), Alexander had spent the hours after school had let out at the library, completing his homework and working on essays. It would be another year or so until he could attempt to apply for a scholarship, but he firmly believed that he should get a head start on writing up essays for them. (He knew, deep down, that when the time came when he could apply for one and send in an essay, he'd spend a week writing up a new essay instead of choosing for the steadily growing pile he'd been working on, but hey, practice makes perfect.) And not for the first time, Alexander had stayed out long past his curfew and had to sneak back into the house of his foster family in order not to be caught.

True, the chances of the drunken pair actually knowing whether or not he was home were slim. And for the most part they truly didn't seem to care. But those few times he'd been caught coming back even just minutes past the curfew had been...and experience, to say the least.

_("What have we told you about coming back after curfew!?"_

_"It was an accident, I just lost track of - "_

_"Don't give me any excuses, you worthless - ")_

His jaw and arm twinged; Alexander shoved the memories back and bent to retrieve a red journal from a three-sided box (it used to have four sides - even a top) under the table, along with one of the pencils from the side of his backpack. It was thick, made thicker with travel-worn paper and bindings, some of the pages falling out and taped back in; in several places there were ink stains and scuff marks, and the back cover was ripped in half.

Alexander held it carefully for a moment, running his eyes over every inch of its surface before carefully opening it to one of the few blank pages left and began to write.

A ritual he'd kept since he'd come to the States from the Caribbean nearly four years ago, writing down the thoughts that swirled throughout his head during the day. At first he'd write for pages and pages. But as time went on, he realized that the chances of him getting a new journal were slim, and the number of pages would dwindle swiftly. So he wrote smaller, cramped his words together so that every word filled the page - the corners, the margins, the spaces in between the lines and sometimes even curving around in strange patterns so that he could get every thought, every word, every experience down. It left many of the pages extremely cramped and difficult to read for the average person, but they were Alexander's words, and even if no one ever read them he'd know what the pages said.

And while it wasn't perfect (nothing, nothing about his life since his mother died was perfect), it would be enough.

He wrote for a while, pen scratching quickly over the page, mind caught up in the events of the day. It was a calming practice, helping to drown out the drunken arguments of the couple in the living room, the creaking of the walls as the temperature dropped outside and the squeak of the slowly rotating ceiling fan above him. It distracted him from the squeal of tires outside in the city, the tight space of his room, and the fact that when he was done, so exhausted that he couldn't notice the ache of his writing hand when he finally signed his name somewhere on the page, he'd have to turn around and face his small twin sized mattress on a stiff steel frame, donned with only a single blanket and an over lumped pillow.

Alexander Hamilton was 15, lost inside the unforgiving system of Foster Care with "parents" that either ignored him or cursed him, and alone with only his words and hopes in a tired, old journal.

It would be enough. It had to be.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to adopt this fic, you can hit me up on Tumblr at http://crsinclair.tumblr.com - I'll give more details about where I was going with this and what my hopes were for the future of it. I will go ahead and say now that I absolutely planned for this to be John/Alex.
> 
> And yes, if multiple people want to tackle this thing (not that I'm expecting many), I wouldn't mind at all. Having different takes on the same story is fun - that's what fanfiction is for, after all. :)


End file.
